Digital Storytelling

What is Storytelling?

“Storytelling is the conveying of events in words, images, and sounds... Stories or narratives are shared in every culture and in every land as a means of entertainment, education, preservation of culture and in order to instill moral values.”-Wikipedia

The Purpose of Storytelling

To teach a lesson

The Purpose of Storytelling

To enrich an experience; create a memory

The Purpose of Storytelling

• To explain how things were, how they are, and how they will be (or won’t be)

The Purpose of Storytelling

To give us heroes and villians; aspirations and missions

The Purpose of Storytelling

To share an experience both personal and universal

It’s no coincidence that just at this point in our insight into our mysteriousness as human beings struggling towards compassion, we are also moving into an awakened interest in the language of myth and fairy tale. The language of logical arguments, of proofs, is the language of the limited self we know and can manipulate. But the language of parable and poetry, of storytelling, moves from the imprisoned language of the provable into the freed language of what I must, for lack of another word, continue to call faith. —Madeleine L’Engle

Why do we need stories?

We are meaning-seeking creatures We need stories and myths to give us rules to live by;

ideas to believe in; goals to strive for

“People are hungry for stories. It’s part of our very being. Storytelling is a form of history, of immortality too. It goes from one generation to another. —Studs Terkel

What is the Connection Between Brands and Storytelling?

"The emergence of brands as myths has been triggered by the decline of standard myths in western culture. Western modernity is “the child of logos” [the opposite of mythos in the Hellenistic tradition, it represents science and facts]. Science became the dominant paradigm for understanding the world. But logos alone is unable to give us a sense of significance – it was myth that gave life meaning and context. Thus society unconsciously cried out for and ultimately created its own myths around the newly dominant force of consumerism. Logos led us to logos.” – Faris Yakob

Brands Need Myths

-Brand Asset Valuator 2008, among 2500 brands studied over 14 years

Brands and Storytelling

Tag cloud of one-word responses to “Corona” on BrandTags.net

Storytelling in the Digital World

“Every art form arises out of a technology. Novels exist because the printing press made books cheap enough to use for fun. TV was supposed to be news and education. The artform that came from the computer is video games.

What I do is write for an art form arising from the internet.”

- Maureen McHugh (founder of the Alternate Reality

Game company No Mimes Media)

Web 1.0 Storytelling

• Multilinear• Evanescent

• Hypertext

• Multimedia

- Adapted from Bryan Alexander, University of Michigan

Storytelling Now

• Multilinear• Evanescent• Hypertext• Multimedia

• Fractals• Evanescent & Eternal• Hypercontextual• Transmedia

Fractals

Stories are usually told in a linear fashion –with a beginning, middle and end. With the rise of user-generated content and the channels to host them, we are seeing stories taking diverging and converging paths. These new forms and directions include crowdsourced endings; mashups; remixes; and the infinite proliferation of old and new stories.

Fractals

Evanescent & Eternal

Bits of online stories are still fleeting and innumerable. But we’re exploring ways to track them, capture them, and form them into coherent stories.

Evanescent & Eternal

Hypercontextual

• Context is playing an increasingly large role in how we interpret and create stories. We can understand and create narratives with respect to the many dimensions that define it - like time, place, mood, and space.

Eg:

Soundwalk – Paris iPhone App

Hypercontextual

Hypercontextual

The Whale Hunt by Jonathan Harris

Transmedia

• Transmedia Storytelling is the weaving of narratives across multiple forms of media with each element making distinctive contributions to a viewer/user/player's understanding of the story world. By using different media formats, it attempts to create "entrypoints" through which consumers can become immersed in a story world. (Henry Jenkins, 2006, Convergence Culture)

• Factors driving the growth of transmedia storytelling: Growth of new media forms like video games, the internet, and mobile platforms and the demand for content in each, and economic incentive to share assets.

Transmedia

•“Transmedia content doesn't just promote a product: it becomes part of the product." - Ivan Askwith•“ Branded entertainment drives product awareness by sort of tacking the brand onto something else, like whatever brands you’re seeing on The Apprentice. On the other hand, transmedia builds brand mythology, placing the brand front and center and building narrative around it” – Jeff Gomez, CEO Starlight Runner

Transmedia

Audi and the Art of the Heist

“A spy movie come to life.”

So what should we think about when we’re telling stories digitally?

To Consider For Digital Storytelling

• We (audience, communities, brands) are creating stories together. Endings are open, narratives are infinite and stories can not be contained.

• "We are now in the business of starting stories, not attempting to nail them down from beginning to end. Letting stories take on a life of their own, to be played with, passed around, modified and enriched by the audiences they’re developed for." - Mel Exon, BBH

To Consider For Digital Storytelling

- Texture and context. We have the tools and technology to make the storytelling experience more immersive, personally relevant, and shareable than ever. We should offer multiple lenses through which to read and interpret our stories - and we should use the most effective media possible to tell specific parts of our stories. The experience should transport, not just illustrate.

- The Power of Fan culture. Fans are ‘hunter gatherers’ of content. They want to participate and piece together their stories. They come with their communities, norms, implicit codes of behavior and language, and so on. If a story/brand wants to reach its fans, it must consider the community, not just the tools and platforms.

To Consider For Digital Storytelling

To Consider For Digital Storytelling

Personal Brands/ Personal Storytelling. How does your story integrate into the personal narratives of your audience members? How can they use it in their own story they’re telling about themselves online and off?

Telling Stories Now: The Takeaway

• Aim to create a consistent, unified experience across all platforms.

• Think about the best platforms for your story, and the best communities to tell them in.

• Each digital piece should be able to stand on its own while adding something to the larger experience.

• Make a campfire. Bring people together. Give them something to participate in and enjoy.

(*thanks to Ivan Askwith for the inspiration)

ResourcesLevis Go Forth Campaignhttp://goforth.levi.comCoca-Cola Happiness Factoryhttp://hf3.coca-cola.com/Burger King Subservient Chickenhttp://www.subservientchicken.comThe Whale Hunthttp://www.thewhalehunt.orgPenguin’s We Tell Storieshttp://wetellstories.co.uk/Soundwalkhttp://www.soundwalk.comVirgin Twitter Campaignhttp://www.4320LA.com

MIT Convergence Culture Consortiumhttp://www.convergenceculture.org/Grant McCrackenhttp://www.cultureby.comFaris Yakobhttp://www.farisyakob.comBig Spaceship Bloghttp://www.bigspaceship.com/blog/think/Starlight Runnerhttp://www.starlightrunner.com/Campfire Mediahttp://www.campfiremedia.com/Brand Tagshttp://www.brandtags.netStar Wars Uncuthttp://www.starwarsuncut.com